Comic-Con is hitting the East Coast for its annual pop culture convention at the Javits Center in Midtown Manhattan this October. To keep you updated on the happenings this year, Variety is compiling a master list of screenings and panels for the Oct. 5-Oct. 8 event. Bookmark this page to stay up to date on the schedule, as we will continue to update when networks and studios release their schedules for the event.

SUNDAY, OCT. 8

The Exorcist (4-5 p.m., Room 1A10, 20th Century Fox) Ben Daniels, Alfonso Herrera, and Kurt Egyiawan will be joined by new cast members John Cho and Zuleikha Robinson, along with creator and executive producer Jeremy Slater and showrunner Sean Crouch to show an extended scene from the third episode and share some behind-the-scenes details from the second season of this horror drama. [Source]

John’s first episode of Difficult People is available to stream on Hulu as of today! John plays advertising agency executive Todd Ross who gets into a fight with Billy’s character after using his headshot for medical ads without his permission. John’s time on screen was a bit too short for my taste but the character definitely made an impression and in such a short time, it’s already one of my favorite John’s roles.

Here’s a sneak peek (and a bit spoiler-y) scene from the episode that I couldn’t help but post. And then head to the gallery to check the episode stills and high quality screencaptures!

John Cho has the starring role in the extraordinary new film, “Columbus,” written, directed and edited by the mono-monikered Kogonada. The Korean-born actor plays Jin, a translator for a publisher in Seoul, who travels to Columbus, Indiana to be near his father, an architecture professor who is in a coma. Jin reveals that he is not especially close with his father, but he does develop a deep, meaningful friendship with Casey (Haley Lu Richardson), a young woman who loves architecture and has stayed in Columbus to care for her mother (Michelle Forbes). Cho and Richardson have an ingratiating, natural rapport that develops as they visit various architectural sites and discuss their lives.

Cho gives a finely calibrated performance that is both profound and affecting. The actor, who is perhaps best known for his work as Sulu in the “Star Trek” films or from the goofball “Harold and Kumar” comedies, appears both enigmatic and transparent in “Columbus” — sometimes within the same scene. Jin may come off as serious, even hard at first, but as the film progresses, he and Casey reveal their emotions, vulnerabilities and sensitivities.

The magic of Kogonada’s exquisite and very moving film extends to how the director frames every shot brilliantly, incorporating Columbus, Indiana’s modernist architecture as a way of expressing the characters’ thoughts and feelings

Cho spoke with Salon about starring in “Columbus,” and the things and people that move him.

There was a buzzy twitter campaign, #starringjohncho, that raised concerns over the lack of leading man roles for Asian American actors. Can you discuss starring in “Columbus”?

There’s not much planning to my career. It’s more “this moves me, and I have to do it.” That was the case with this script. I met Kogonada and I had to do it. I’ve done things for reasons other than passion, and you can’t strategize your career — or at least, that doesn’t work for me. In the political context you’re speaking about, it’s not a reaction to the plight of the Asian American male, but I wear that as a badge of pride. “Columbus” doesn’t play to stereotypes by fighting them. It’s confident enough to be its own story and shrug off the noise about stereotypes and diversity. That’s why I was attracted to it. I’m less concerned with politics and more about expression and truth. [More at Source]

If you were online last summer during the peak of a particular social media movement, you may have seen John Cho fantasy-cast as James Bond, Ethan Hunt, Steve Rogers, and even “Magic” Mike Lane. The #StarringJohnCho campaign made (and continues to make) a statement about representation by imagining a universe where Asian-American actors get the iconic roles almost always played by white men. But Cho’s actual latest role isn’t an internationally-renowned spy or an all-American superhero, as in the whisper-soft indie drama Columbus, the actor plays Jin, the son of a dying man. In talking about representation, conversations tend to revolves around blockbusters, but smaller-scale films like Cho’s Columbus help move the needle forward, too.

“This movie in particular, I will say, was unusual because it didn’t explicitly push against any stereotype,” Cho says, speaking over the phone in late July. “It was true freedom because it was confident to do its own thing. It didn’t repudiate any stereotypes, it just existed outside of that pool, and that to me is where we want to go.” [More at Source]

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